


not firewood yet

by serendipitiness



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (not immortal malec in case that's an issue), Gen, Good Sibling Isabelle Lightwood, Immortality, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Supportive Isabelle Lightwood, aka siblings have contemplative conversations on the balcony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23879011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitiness/pseuds/serendipitiness
Summary: He feels a little stupid when he orders fairy lights off the internet, but considering the soft, endeared smile gracing Magnus’ face when he’d laid eyes on the balcony, decked out for a nighttime picnic, Alec thinks it was more than worth it. Anyway, Magnus is another year older now, hovering somewhere past seven hundred and forty, give or take two hundred years. He and Alec are hosting their third Christmas celebration together, and something feels distinctly different this time.Alec is still figuring out what.
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 9
Kudos: 112





	not firewood yet

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song firewood by regina spektor

December arrives at their doorstep this year at something of a gallop.

In a previous life, Alec wouldn’t have minded. The last month of the year has always been much like the first month, or the eleventh month -- unexceptional, and nastily cold. Except now, December brings with it not only the winter holidays, but Magnus’ _birthday_ , and Alec has a very solid track record of “unnecessarily stressing yourself out even though your husband doesn’t give a shit about what presents you get him because all he cares about is you.”

A direct quote from Izzy.

Accuracy of the statement aside, Alec’s pretty sure he developed an ulcer in the process of planning out Magnus’ birthday dinner. He feels a little stupid when he orders fairy lights off the internet, but considering the soft, endeared smile gracing Magnus’ face when he’d laid eyes on the balcony, decked out for a nighttime picnic, Alec thinks it was more than worth it.

Anyway, Magnus is another year older now, hovering somewhere past seven hundred and forty, give or take two hundred years. He and Alec are hosting their third Christmas celebration together, and something feels distinctly different this time.

Alec is still figuring out what.

The party is in a quiet lull at the moment, soft chatter interrupted by the occasional clink of glasses and the sound of some Transsiberian Orchestra piece playing overhead. Magnus, Raphael, and Dot are bickering over something while Cat’s got her feet propped up in Magnus’ lap. Between the three warlocks, they’ve finished at least two and a half bottles of red, and it’s evident in the drawl of their voices and the way Cat’s chin is slumped on her chest. Despite being in the presence of his very best friends, every minute or so, Magnus’ eyes flicker to Alec’s, a warm, secret smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and Alec is helpless to do anything but smile in return.

“You utter sap,” he hears, and he blinks to see Izzy joining him on the balcony, somehow not shivering despite the fact that snow is drifting down onto her exposed arms. Her hair is swept up in an elegant, if complicated, knot, her knee-length dress the same shade of red as her lipstick. She hands him a hot mug of mulled wine, and presses against his hip. “Do you two even know how to look at each other without doing heart eyes?”

Alec frowns. “What,” he answers faintly, before he glances back at Magnus. He feels his cheeks flame when Magnus lifts his new snake pendant to his lips, the new gift courtesy of Alec’s recent Clave meeting in Cairo.

“You’re so gross,” Izzy says, the roll of her eyes clear in the tone of her words, but the fun, sarcastic bite in her tone softens when she leans her head against Alec’s shoulder. “But it’s good. This is good gross.”

Alec pulls Izzy closer and presses a kiss to her hair, chuckling a little at the undeniable truth of her statement. “You have it too,” he says. “Even if it’s with Simon.”

“Shut up, you love him,” Izzy laughs. “And anyway, we’re different from you and Magnus, and that’s fine,” she shrugs in his arms. “He’s good to me, and he supports me where it matters when I’m trying to be the best Institute head/forensic pathologist/weapons specialist this side of the Mississippi.”

“The whole country, you mean.”

Izzy laughs. “The entire dimension, actually. But I didn’t come here to fish for compliments. There’s a party going on inside right now. What are you doing out here on your own?”

Alec lifts his wine to his mouth and takes a long swallow. The taste is warm with the sweet heat of cinnamon, like apple pie in his mouth. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “My headspace is -- it’s just one of those weird days. I’m sorry I pulled you away from the party.”

“Clary and Jace are sucking face in one of the bedrooms, Maia and Simon aren’t even in town, Mom and Luke are late, and the warlocks and Raphael are gossiping about something that happened in 1932, so.” Izzy shrugs. “Tell me why you’re being weird.”

Alec huffs out a laugh of amusement before he turns to her, searching her quiet expression before he shakes his head in easy resignation. If there’s one person in the world who’s never had a problem pulling the truth from him, even when he wanted to keep it a secret, it’s his baby sister.

“This,” he says, waving his hand around. He’s not even sure what exactly it is that he means. The loft, maybe. This home. This family. “It’s the third time we -- he? -- whatever. We’ve hosted a holiday thing three times, now, and I think…” It isn’t until he gets to this point that he knows what he’s going to say. “I just realized that this is the first time I feel like it’s normal. Like I’m used to it. And that’s… I don’t know. It scares me.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“No, I mean -- god. I mean it scares me because I like it. I like that this is normal, and if it ever goes away, I don’t know what that’ll do to us.”

“Why the hell would it ever go away?” Izzy asks. She sets her drink on the table behind her, the movement leaving a chill on his skin before she draws close again. Arms crossed and expression set, she looks eerily like their mother. “You two are hitched and happy. Obviously so.”

He doesn’t answer her right away, staring, instead, out toward Manhattan. The skyline’s changed so fast in the past few years that he has to search hard to find the skyscrapers he grew up under.

“Alec?”

“Have you ever been afraid to die?” he asks. The question comes from nowhere and everywhere, the words forming just milliseconds before he says them.

Izzy is quiet. Her gaze sharpens, focused on his face.

“What’s this about, Alec?”

“Have you?” he prompts again.

She sighs in mild frustration, though her eyes don’t shift. “Yes,” she says bluntly. “Often. I never bought that bullshit about dying young being our way. There are a million and one things I want to do and I don’t want to die before I get to try them all. But I don’t think that really answers your question.”

“No,” Alec answers softly. He stares at the mug of mulled wine in his hands, steam disappearing into the winter air. “Not really.”

There’s an odd sense of clarity about him right now -- maybe it’s the time of night, maybe it’s the place he’s at, maybe it’s the overwhelming feeling of peace that blankets him right now. Either way, the taste of wine is round and sweet on his taste buds, loosening that knot in his chest as he speaks.

“Every year that goes by, I feel -- better,” Alec says. “I like my life more. I like being Inquisitor. I like visiting you and Jace in New York, I like how I am with Mom, I like coming home to Magnus, I like doing dishes while he dances in the living room. None of it is what I thought I’d have, and it’s a miracle that I have what I do.”

“It’s what you deserve,” Izzy says gently.

“No,” Alec shakes his head, “it’s not that I don’t think I deserve it. I think most people do. But the thing is -- it’s Magnus.”

Izzy frowns. “I mean -- is he not happy?”

Alec smiles, knowing behind him, inside, that Magnus is drunk and smiling and beautifully laughing. “He is. He _is_ and that’s what freaks me out.”

“You lost me.”

“Every day the two of us get closer, get more comfortable, feel better about our lives… god, he’s come so far, you know? He was so unhappy for so long, he was so certain he’d never be loved, but he does, _he_ deserves this, and I -- I love him. I love him and his dumb puns and his poky hair and his stupid habit of throwing shit everywhere.” He breathes, throat feeling tight. “I don’t want to leave him, Iz.”

She catches on right away, his brilliant sister. “Would you rather be immortal?” she asks bluntly.

Alec looks down. “That’s the thing,” he says softly. “Even if it were possible -- I wouldn’t.”

There’s always something about saying words out loud that makes them feel true -- truer than the thought that’s been percolating in Alec’s head for the past few months. Since the beginning, the problem of immortality has loomed over Alec’s shoulder like a demon with its mouth open, fangs dripping slow-acting poison into his skin. He and Magnus had mentioned it before when they were dating, but they’d never reached a conclusion before tumbling head over heels into getting married.

“A shotgun wedding was kind of stupid,” Magnus had said the week after, when they were still honeymooning in the Seychelles. “But I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Alec wouldn’t change it for the world either, then or now, but what it meant was that in the aftermath of it, he and Magnus had to peel back the layers on questions too big for either of them.

_What do I do when you die?_

_What do I do when you live?_

“It would be easier if I did want to be immortal,” Alec continues. “If I could tell Magnus, _yes, I want to live forever with you_. But… even if it were possible to become immortal and still be me, forever is terrifying and I don’t want it. Not --” He swallows now, feeling uncomfortable. “Not even for him.”

Izzy’s mouth forms an ‘o,’ a crease forming between her brows. She reaches out to Alec, hand laid flat on his arm, thumb brushing against the fabric of his jacket. “Please tell me you two have talked about this,” she says.

Alec heaves a broken sigh. “Yeah, we have. We talked about it a couple months after the wedding, after he found out I volunteered to be a vampire to get him out of Edom. We argued, and yelled, and got mad at each other, and then -- you know. Acknowledged the fact that I was mortal, I was staying mortal, that he’d… he’d have to survive me.” Alec clenches his jaw, remembering the ache of that day. “I think it was the worst conversation I’ve had in my life.”

“Mm,” Izzy hums, and settles into Alec’s side.

“We needed to have it, though. I’m glad we had it.”

“But.”

“But.” Alec bites his lip, chest feeling hollow. “It doesn’t mean I’m not scared to die. It doesn’t mean I’m not scared to leave him alone. I’m not so naive that I think I’m the last person he’ll love, but it’s just that… nights like this that are just -- so _good_ , you know? Nights like this make me think of what he loses when I go. What I lose when I die.”

“Oh, Alec.” Izzy’s voice is tender, soothing. A hand wraps around his elbow. “I’m sorry. I -- I feel like there really isn’t anything else I can say except that.”

He chuckles ruefully. “No, there isn’t.”

Because Magnus is always going to be Magnus, and Alec is always going to be Alec, and even if they’ve agreed on how this is going to end, it doesn’t mean they’re satisfied with it, really. Once in a while, questions about the future arise, and with them comes a sense of melancholy sours on Alec’s tongue.

“It is what it is,” Alec says, and hugs a now-empty mug to his chest. “It doesn’t change anything about my life and what I want to be doing with it. It’s just something I think about every now and then.” He turns to Izzy, and leans his cheek onto her hair. “Thanks for listening. I’m sorry I got in a mood.”

“Never,” Izzy retorts quickly. “I’m always here to listen. You could tell me stuff more often, you know.”

“ _You_ could tell me stuff more often,” Alec retorts, grinning.

“I could,” Izzy answers, “but first, I just need to say -- thank you for telling me all of that, because I know it can’t be easy. I don’t… I don’t think I fully understand how you feel, and I’ll be honest, a part of me never wants to understand, but you’re my brother and I’m here for you, okay?”

Alec wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her in, a smile curling on his face that wars with an ache in his throat.

“Okay,” he says.

“Just know -- just know that you’re so loved in this life. And Magnus is so loved too. And for now, right now, while you’re here together, that’s what’s important.”

Alec breathes, and stares out at Brooklyn. The bridge shines bright with pinpricks of light, flashing as they speed toward Manhattan. He isn’t wired to _not_ think or worry about the future, but what Izzy said is right -- this moment is what matters. This moment is all he can _control_ , no matter how much he wishes he could do more. It’s what Magnus has said, time and time again, in those muted moments of heartache that hit them both so hard; it's not a resolution, not at all, nor does it really make anything better, but tonight, the knowledge settles him just enough that the itch in his mind quiets temporarily.

“When did you get so smart?” he asks his sister. “Remember when you used to eat crayons?”

“Shut up,” Izzy laughs, though her gaze is still soft, like she can tell he doesn’t want to keep talking about it. She punches him in the shoulder. It hurts. “I thought they smelled good. You suck. Go inside and get me a drink. It’s the holidays, your husband has been staring at your back for the past ten minutes, and we’ve already had enough sad conversation to last us for another month at least, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” he agrees, and tugs her toward the living room, smiling with honest contentment as he makes eye contact with Magnus. “At least another month, I guess.”

**Author's Note:**

> yes i wrote about december in april shhhh


End file.
